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Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia, Peter S. Onuf has written extensively on sectionalism, federalism, and political economy, with a particular emphasis on the political thought of Thomas Jefferson. In this lecture, he looks at Jefferson’s opinions about federal government.

Primary Source

Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s vision for the economic foundation of the United States included the federal assumption of state debts, the creation of a Bank of the United States, and support for the new nation’s emerging industries. After the first two parts of his plan had been accepted, he presented the third part to Congress in his Report on the Subject of Manufactures in December 1791.

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By October 1780, in the midst of the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton was discouraged by the apparent apathy of the American people and the ineffectuality of their elected representatives, as well as by the recent discovery of Benedict Arnold’s treachery.

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Within hours of the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, Angelica Schuyler Church, Elizabeth Hamilton’s sister and Hamilton’s close friend and correspondent, was at the fatally wounded Hamilton’s bedside and wrote this letter to her brother Philip Schuyler to break the news.

Primary Source

Primary Source

The presidential election of 1800 provided Alexander Hamilton, former secretary of the treasury, with a dilemma: a tie between Thomas Jefferson, a man whose principles were in direct opposition to Hamilton's own, and Aaron Burr, a man Hamilton believed to have no principles at all.

Primary Source

On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr shot former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. Nine days later he wrote this cryptic letter (partially in cipher) to his son-in-law, Joseph Alston.

Teaching Resource

Objectives
Students will examine primary documents and secondary sources to analyze effects of technology on economic growth in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Students will be able to identify the major economic trends of the first half of the nineteenth century.
Students will be able to identify how technological advances in transportation in the first half of the nineteenth century changed the economy of the U.S. and the government relationship to that economy.
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